Perhaps the following describes your situation: You are eager to learn, looking for a challenge and seeking additional responsibilities. You see opportunities in every problem.

Your co-workers show little or no enthusiasm about work, do the bare minimum, shuffle paper, and find problems in every opportunity. They find a lot to complain about.

The question: Can you be an eagle while working with turkeys?

Yes, absolutely. It takes will, determination, and purpose, but it can be done.

Seems that Jean Egan would agree. Writing in Clinical Laboratory Management Review, Egan, a clinical laboratory scientist, says that no matter what the daily situation, each employee ultimately chooses to be successful in his or her environment.

And I would agree with Egan. Each person has total control over how they choose to act toward one another.

One way to become more effective in those choices is to become familiar with the DISC language. DISC is a popular assessment that measures people’s preferences on four spectrums:

- How we approach problems
- How we like to interact with people
- Our preferred daily work pace
- How we respond to rules and procedures

Because the assessment is behavioral, if we learn this DISC language we can observe other’s behaviors and make reasonably accurate determinations about how to best interact with styles different from our own.

Egan says using the DISC Language improves interactions among all staff, and again, I agree. I’ve been using the DISC model for years and have found it indispensable. Being aware of how to talk with people who are wired differently improves the quality of our interactions.

In other words, adapting our approach to different people creates the conditions for us to fly like eagles.

In the mean time, Happy Thanksgiving.   And enjoy the turkey. 

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Filed in Work, Motivation, Teambuilding, Workplace, Corporate Culture